Code red

An announcement for the next stop was made, and Ying Yue prepared herself for what was to come. It was a good thing she didn't wear heels today.

The train slowed to a stop and the doors slid open. Four people glanced to check if she was getting off, but Ying Yue stayed put. When the doors were about to close and they looked away, she bolted.

Out of the four, two got caught when the doors closed. The other two were right at her tail.

Ying Yue ran up the stairs. "Excuse me! Sorry! Passing through!" She squeezed in between and among the throng of people, hoping to lose the men behind her, but she could hear them running just a few meters behind.

She took off for the nearest exit, and just when she was about to push the door open, a man in a suit took hold of her arms behind her. "Stop running, come with us."

She struggled against his hold.

The other two men were still running to her direction.

Damn it. They had men stationed at each stop!

It was too late to grab the knife in her bag, so she leaned forward and made a backward kick to the man's groin. "Urgh!"

His hands loosened and she took the opportunity to turn around and jam his eyes and throat with her fingertips. The man squealed in pain. She left him there and made it through the exit.

Panting, she ran to the next block and hailed a cab, giving the address to Juyan.

Ying Yue had to inform Big Boss about what happened. She quickly dialed his office and luckily, it went through after the first ring.

"Shadow fox."

"Code red," she whispered, cutting the call straight away. He would understand. After a moment, her eyesight blurred, and she couldn't stop a tear from spilling over her cheek. Those damn bastards of Jade Circle, she thought.

Now that you've provoked me, you should watch me burn you to the ground.

***

Big Boss stilled, the sound of the flat dial tone ringing in his ears, a reminder that Ying Yue had already put down the phone.

Code red. That meant people were after her. Her identity was already compromised. He never thought Ying Yue would ever call a code red as long as he protected her. It seems he was wrong.

Mo Yiling was right. Jade Circle had found out about her and were going after her.

He placed the phone back to its cradle and headed for Mo Yiling's office in the tech room.

"Yiling." Big Boss didn't bother knocking and headed straight for the man who was busy tapping away at multiple keyboards. "We have a--"

"Code red for shadow fox, I know. I've already mobilized the phoenix team."

Mo Yiling was busy tracking down anyone who might be following Ying Yue. On one screen, there was Ying Yue's GPS location, indicating that she was on the way to Juyan. Another showed a satellite image of the subway station. On the other screens were surveillance videos around her.

A rule in Juyan was that their agent had to call Big Boss and him only on the occasion of a code red. He'd be the one to mobilize the phoenix team. So how did Mo Yiling find out? "How did you know?" Big Boss turned to one of the screen monitors playing back the incident inside the subway station.

"The tracker in her watch was going haywire. It must've been hit or something. I tracked her down and found that." He pointed to the video that Big Boss was staring at.

He nodded his head in understanding, a spark of hatred for himself blooming inside him. He was the head of Juyan. He was entrusted with Ying Yue's care. And yet he let it come to this. He felt like a failure at that moment. He should've let her quit her job at Fei International after that incident and hid her elsewhere. Instead, he concealed the nature of the incident from her and let her carry on with her life. Now she was in danger.

"Is the phoenix team in place?"

The phoenix team was Juyan's private security team. They were highly-trained individuals whose jobs were solely to protect the agents of Juyan. Some of them used to be hitmen, some of them used to be from the Empire's elite special forces. Some of them had other jobs, called in only when there was a code red.

Mo Yiling pointed to one screen. Two red dots were tailing the cab that Ying Yue was in. "One of them together with team captain Xi Shenghui are securing shadow fox." Some red dots were at the subway station where Ying Yue had alighted from, and other dots were elsewhere. "Three are trying to secure at least one of the men who followed her at the station, and the others are tracking down anyone we might not have identified. I've also sent a few to secure her apartment. The rest of the team are already in place at Juyan."